Hazel Park Police take pay cut

Hazel Park Police Station. (Michael P. McConnell/Daily Tribune) The 27-member Hazel Park Police Officers Association took cuts in pay, healthcare co-pays and holiday pay in a new contract ratified by the City Council this week.

HAZEL PARK – City police officers are set to take another pay cut under a new contract that was approved this week.

“We’re sacrificing the best we can for the city and for our members,” said Officer Joe Lowry, president of the 27-member Hazel Park Police Officers Association, which negotiated for several months. “It was a tough process.”

The City Council on Tuesday ratified the new one-year contract, which expires June 30, 2013.

City Manager Ed Klobucher said the city’s budget, which continues to shrink because of declining property values, cannot accommodate more than a one-year contract.

Officers and other city workers took a 5-percent wage cut a couple of years ago. Police officers in the new contract agreed to take an additional 2.5-percent cut in pay.

Officers will also pay higher co-pays on health insurance and agreed to a 50-percent reduction in holiday pay.

“I’m very grateful for the cooperation we received from the police union on this contract,” Klobucher said. “The (police) patrol division is the backbone of our city services and I credit them for their willingness to work with the city and make a commitment to the residents and the city’s future.”

The terms of the contract are expected to save the city roughly $250,000 a year.

The contract also allows the city to hire some part-time officers, a concession that police union members did not want to make, Lowry said.

Any part-time officers will become union members but Lowry said it is an unpopular move with fellow officers.

“Our union has never had part-time employees,” he said. “Not only are there safety concerns, I don’t know that the taxpayers realize the city is going to attempt to employ part-time employees in our department.”

The terms of the new contract allow the police officers’ union to have a say in what part-timers do and how they do it, Lowry said.

The city still has to negotiate a contract with city firefighters.

The city began negotiating with the police officers union back in May. City officials at the time said that without union concessions they would have to consider laying off a total of 10 employees in the police and fire departments in order to close a budget shortfall of more than $1 million.

City voters last year approved a 9.8-mill tax hike to fund a dedicated millage just for police and fire. The millage raised about $2 million the first year, but because of a continuing drop in property values the millage is expected to generate about $400,000 less this year.

Housing prices in Hazel Park declined about 17 percent in the past year.